The translation of motion events from Spanish into English: a cross-linguistic perspective

Abstract

This study is based on the theoretical framework of conceptual transfer established by Jarvis (1998, 2007) and on the typology of satellite-framed and verb-framed languages developed by Talmy (1985, 2000). The relationship between conceptual transfer and the thinking for speaking hypothesis (Slobin, 1996b) is also considered. We show that conceptual transfer applies in the translation of lexicalization patterns in motion events from Spanish into English. Our informants are 20 Spanish-speaking translation students who specialize in translation from Spanish/English, English/Spanish. They were faced with a series of 10 sentences containing seven examples including motion verbs and three distractors. The results seem to show that the translations from Spanish to English indicate a preference to follow the L1 lexicalization pattern, coding Path in the main verb and Manner in a separate constituent, as opposed to the English lexicalization pattern where Manner of Motion is conflated in a single lexical item and Path is indicated in a satellite. This misuse of the English pattern can be interpreted as an example of conceptual transfer. When conceptual transfer is at work non-target-like translations are produced. More attention needs to be paid to the different conceptual structures of motion events in both languages.